Behrman House: About Us: Open Lion 7.1: Jacob Behrman Retires from Behrman House

About Us: Open Lion 7.1

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Volume 7 Issue 1	Fall 2000

Jacob Behrman Retires from Behrman House

[caption below] Jacob Behrman

Jacob Behrman retired in October from daily responsibilities at Behrman House, and has relocated to Chevy Chase, MD to be nearer his daughter Rachel and four of his grandchildren.

Jacob is fond of saying he has had two careers: as a private in the infantry of the U.S. Army, and running Behrman House. He returned from service in Europe in World War II, where he was decorated with the Purple Heart, to the bookstore then known as Behrman's Jewish Books. At that time, though the firm did some publishing, it was primarily a bookstore, selling other publishers' books to congregations and to retail customers.

With the end of the War, the migration of much of the Jewish community to the suburbs, and the development of the congregational religious school, Jacob began to change the firm's focus so that it concentrated more on publishing and less on bookselling. Most importantly, he recognized the needs of Jewish schools for high-quality, engaging, and informative textbooks. Over the course of the next 20 years, the firm's focus on the needs of religious schools made it the leading publisher of textbooks.

At the same time, reflecting his own wide interests and prescient tastes, the firm continued to publish works of interest to adult Jewish readers by prominent thinkers of the day such as Abba Eban, Louis Jacobs, Lucy Davidowicz, Robert Alter, and Meyer Levin.

Today, Behrman House stands as the leading publisher of high-quality books for Jewish schools throughout North America and in English-speaking countries around the world.

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